TEACHER'S DAY AT PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Pondicherry University, one of the most dynamic of Central Universities in the country celebrated the Teacher's Day in a grand manner. The Vice Chancellor, Professor J A K Tareen has given back to the Faculty of the University the dignity that was denied to it be by individuals who cannot be named. His vision of making the university a leading center for highe learning is being realised and he repeatedly speaks of the low ranking Indian institutions of higher learning get in International surveys such as the London Times list and the Shanghai list. His remedy is to increase the student base of the UNiversity, thereby maving from what can be called fishing in a "small pond" for "crabs and fishes" to an ocean where "whales and sharks" are the quarry--the potential Nobel Prize winners. There is an implecable logic in this analogy and I hope that this grand vision unfloded in this University is realised.

The Chief Guest was Professor M Anandakrishnan, Chairman of the Board of Governors, IIT, Kanpur. His pep talk suited the occasion and he boldly said that the reason for the declining standard of education was he rampant political interference. He pointedly said that if Sir S Radhkrishnan were to revisit the Universities with which he was associated with like BHU, Andhra UNiversity and Madras University he would be shocked at the falling standards. Identity politics coupled with political interference were the two single most important factors for the lack of credible universities in India. Pondicherry University remains an exception primarily because the Vice Chancellor remains committed to making the University a world class institution.


The Best Teacher Awards were presented to the outstanding Faculty members. The teachers were evaluated on the basis of 20 paramenters and the those who scored more than 4.5 on the 5.0 scale were selected for the awards. It was an honour to receive this prestigeous award.

The phenomenal growth of the University has led to the University being ranked at # 16 in a recent survey done by the weekly magazine India Today. Anyone who has been associated with the institution as an oldtimer (those who joined at the very inception of the Univeristy and not those who wafted in with the gentle breeze) will say with conviction that what they see on the Campus is a total transformation of the academic culture and administrative practices.

I wish the Univerity, its Vice Chancellor, Professor J A K Tareen and the students the very best.

DO RAJIV GANDHI"S KILLERS DESERVE MERCY

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Thucydides, the great Athenian historian, has a famous chapter in his book The History of the Peloponesian War in which the fate of the male inhabitants of the island of Melos is discussed in the Athenian Assembly. Known as the Melian Dialogue, this chapter must be read by all those who have rushed into the debate on the fate of Rajiv Gandhi's killers. I do not have any sympathy for Rajiv Gandhi or for that matter the criminal organisation called the Congress Party. I must add that I am one of those who argues vigorously that the Congress should be expelled from the political arena because it organised the largest massacre in the history of independent India and Rajiv Gandhi actively abetted this crime. The fact is that Rajiv Gandhi's killers are now perceived to be icons of Tamil Nationalism makes it difficult for a soft state like India, and a government rendered even more soft by incompetence, dynastic fascism and corruption,to carry out the sentence. I do not think that the killers will be executed on September 9th 2011.

Thucydides with whom I began this blog says that political considerations outweigh moral and even legal considerations while debating the issue of clemency. Will any purpose be served now if the 3 men convicted of killing Rajiv Gandhi are put down. It will only reignite the fire of Tamil ethic nationalism and India cannot afford another Identity founded political movement. Further, the role of Rajiv Gandhi's mother in creating the very organisation that ultimately killed her son will once again come to the fore. Further, the incompetent and politically and militarily disastrous intervention by the Indian Army in Sri Lanka following the Indo_Sri Lnakan Agreement will once again be the focus of attention. And the criminal organisation called the Congress has conveniently chosen to forget the Jain Commission findings because Sonia and her courtiers are now in bed with the DMK in that menagerie called the United Progressive Alliance. All these facts are highly damaging to the Congress and hence the killers will have their sentences commuted.

Whether the 3 killers deserve mercy or not is a moot point. Politically it will be impossible for them to be hanged. Already the Tamil Nationalists are out in straight demanding the commutation of the death sentence. The Gandhi family itself has set the precedent by requesting and getting the sentence on Nalini commuted to life imprisonment. The 3 killers will have their sentences commuted and as they have spent more than 16 years in jail, they will be eventually released. Tamil Nadu has the dubious distinction of releasing life convicts whose sentence in commuted for absurd reasons like the 100th birthday of Mr Annadurai. So far 6 people including a young girl have burnt themselves to death in support of the killers. With this kind of madness around the soft state like India cannot carry out its own judicial verdict.

One last point. Did not Rajiv Gandhi deserve his fate as he was responsible for the largest massacre in the history of Independent India and his 3 killers were only instruments of retribution.

WHY ANNA HAZARA IS WRONG; CORRUPTION WILL NOT END WITH THE LOK PAL BILL

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Like a sleeping mahavishnu, Anna Hazara appears daily before the nation's reading public. His statrments, earthy and pointedly simplistic, has thw xountry entrhralled. The media hype surrounding this 74 year old wonderkid from the boondocks of Maharashtra, is such that even to question his rhetorical and theatrical stuts is to invite the wrath of the hyper active middle class and its acolytes in the electronic media. The whole nation is watching with bated breath his antics and such is the power of the media that a large number of people beleive that corruptionwill just vanish the moment the Lok Pal Bill as drafted bb Anna and his Team is passed. Nothing is further from the truth.

Anna's middle calss movement with its noisy assemblage of journalists, social wannbes, fashion designers, corporate lobbyists are now masquerading as the conscience of the nation. Yhis very class is responsible along with the crimianl politicians for the total collape of the moral fabric of Indian society and yet this class pretends to be an agent of change. Corruption could not have grown to this monstrous propotion without the active connivance of the very class that has now comwe out in open support of Anna Hazare. In fsct, Anna Hazare is not challening dynastic fascism he is only reinforcing it when he declared this afternoon that he will negotiate only with Rahul Gandhi or with the Prime Minister. Is this not an open endorcement of dynasty and we all know that the Gandhi Dynasty is the bebeficiary of the corruption. While he has no faith in parliament, this saith from Maharashtra reposes full confidence in the dynasty.

Corruption will not end in India even if Anna Hazare and his 5 magicians are appointed Lok Pals will sky high powers of investigation and procecution. This is because the electoral system has become the fountainhead of all that is wrong in the Indian variant of democracy. One change that Anna Hazare could have asked for but did not is to insist on the audit of the accounts of the politicaL PARTIES. Since politics runs on black money, the system that generates black money is left virtually untouched by Saint Anna Hazare and his 5 apostles. This condition of subjecting the political parties to the audit peocess wil go a long way in cleaning up the political system. Instead the 4 wise men and 1 wise woman want s Lok Pal who will get into the peicture after the deed is done. There is nothing to prevent the Lok Pal and his fellow members of becoming one more layer in a corrupt pie.

I approve of Anna Hazare total disdain for politicians because India is singularly unfortunate in having full time criminals as part time members of Parliament. Team Anna's draft does not address the issue of wanton criminalisation of the political process. If the bill is passed, as I think it will, then will corruption vanish from India. The naswer is a resounding NO.

Is Indian Independence worth the blood, tears, toil and sweat?

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The celebration of Independence Day has become a hollow ritual. The tricolour which once inspire a whole generation has become the symbol of a corrupt, facist dynasty which runs the Congress party. The speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort has the contrived quality of a ritual whose day has passed. Does the idea of India inspire any hope?

The rampant corruption of which the 2G Spectrum Scam and the CWG scam are but the most egresious examples will have their impact on the electorate in thr next general elections. The Indian people are not concerned with political corruption if it is within managable limits. What has now happened it that the people have realised that the sole purpose of politics is to gain power and pelf and use both to cultivate a "vote bank" as the Congress party has done over the past 40 years. Is this the Freedom for which so many countless martyrs laid down their lives. Had they known that within a few decades of Independence India will fall prey to dynastic fascism, I am sure many would have wondered if freedom is woth the candle.

The Indian politician, like the post-colonial intellectual was the first to realise the absolute goldmine in the form if "identity politics". Starting first with language which led to the division of India along linguistic lines, then caste identities were politisised by V P Singh and his cohorts which in turn led to caste blocks becoming the vote banks of politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadava and Laloo Prasad Yadava. The absolute criminalisation of the political system can be seen in those parts of India where political parties representing caste blocks rule the roost. I, of course have Karunanidh's restwhile regime in Tamil Nadu and Mayavathi's regime in Uttar Pradesh in mind. Is this the freedom the martyrs faught and died for?

Apart from the criminalisation of Indian politics due to the strangle hold of identity politics there are other disconcerting aspects. The electoral process has lost its neutral character. P Chidambaram's declaration as the victor in the Sivagangai Parliamentary elections in 2009 is itself proof of how the rich and the powerful are able to subvert the system. And this man is now the "Home Minister" of India a position once occupied by Sardar patle, Lal Bahadur Sastri and Hon'ble L K Advani. Is this the freedom the martyrs of India died for?

The Indian state is crumbling from the weight of its own monstrous crimes. The entire tribal belt is under the sway of the naxalites and given the disgust the people of India feel toward the political system, it is only a short step toward an alliance between the disgruntled elements and the violent naxalites. Civil society activists like Anna Hazare will be co opted into this corrupt political system, leaving the field wide open for Baba Ramdev.

We have to see whether the India that we know will survive another 25 years. The 4 southern state together with Gujarat and Maharashtra already account for nearly 45% of India's GDP. Regional disparities will lead to the undermining of the political fabric. Unfortunately the whole political system is obsessed with its dynastic fixation aand has no time to think of the problems of India. Is this the India for which the martyrs died?

China has shown that a country can progress in spite of centuries of social and economic stagnation. The Universities in China like Beijing University have risen to the very top of the list of global universities and India is struggling at the rock bottom. Is this the Freedom the martyrs died for? I think when historians look back on the post Independence period of India's past they will not hesitate to conclude that a glorious dream was betrayed by dynastic fascism and corruption.

The Norwegian Massacre: Is it Christian Terrorism

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Norway has always regarded it self as the conscience of the civilized world. The self appointed custodian of "western values" was always quick to defend every terrorist group in the world the latest being the LTTE, the terrorist group which was responsible for killing more than 50,000 civilians. Norway was one of the prominent EU countries which followed a split policy on terrorism: condemn the state if it tries to defend the territorial integrity of the country, but always defend sundry terrorist and anarchist groups in the name of human rights. Norway had no qualms about signing up for the War on Terror crafted by the US under the leadership of Bush and Blair. Always following an aggressive policy of promoting Western geo -strategic interests, Norway maintained the "high moral" ground by adopting a hectoring tone when it came to countries like Sri Lanka which faced one of the worst terrorist groups in the world with cynide capsules and human bombs.

The Western media always labels political acts of violence anywhere in the world with a religious tag. Thus we have the well known category of Islamic terrorism. Given this fact can we call the massacre of 94 young people on the island of Uteoya by Anders Behring Breivik as an act of Christian terrorism just as the world seems to recognize the existence of Islamic terrorism. There is an eerie similarity in the planning and execution of the plot with Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma Federal Building bombing nearly a decade back. McVeigh too was inspired by fundamentalist Christian values and he too used ammonium nitrate as the explosive charge for the bomb.

The suggestion that there is a Christian terrorism is just as wrong as the assertion that there is Islamic terrorism. The Moslem countries have certain grievances which must be addressed and they are all of a political nature, By giving a religious complexion to protest and its attendent violence the Western world is basically evading its own responsibility is generating the grievances that lead to violence. Norway with its ruling labour Party has followed a policy of giving shelter to groups that will be labeled terrorist by any definition.

The man who killed 94 young people and blew up the Prime Minister's office in downtown Oslo was a home grown terrorist and I am sure that Norway will be more circumspect while condemning other state for protecting the territorial integrity of the state.

Gulam Nabi Fai, Indian Intellectuals and Narional Security

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The involvement of Indian "intellectuals" in the seminar circuit operated by Dr Gulam Nabi Fai who was also the Director of the American-Kashmir Council does not come as a surprise to me at all. When I see the tele intellectuals from JNU sitting in the NDTV sudio with their poster girl Barkha Dutt making the most outlandish statements I only feel that India can never be a world class power with a brain trust that can be hired for an economy class ticket to USA. What is even more disgusting is that this breed of parasites has colonised the UGC, the media, the National Advisory Council, NGOs and the like and a younger generation is being trained to follow in the illustrious footsteps of such "intellectuals". These intellectuals do not read but trade in opinion and pass of political positions in the garb of academic research. The post-colonial theoretical armature that these intellectuals invoke elided the boundaries between truth and fiction, between opinion and judgement, between theoretical position and practice. What is most disconcerting is that these intellectuals profess unalloyed liberal views in public and rant with full vigor at "reactionary hindu extremism", froth at the mouth at the mention of Hon'ble Narendar Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and let their hearts bleed for criminals of every kind who happen to belong to the "right " caste are silent when it comes to real issues. For instance these tele intellectuals have written volumes on the 1992 event in Ayodhya, but hardly have a word on the criminal pogrom of the Congress Party in 1984. They are the first to hold candle light vigil for "terrorists" killed in police actions but do not have a word of succour for the victims of terrorism, On the one hand they seek the freedom to criticise the Nation state from every platform available but are the first to hold their grubby palms for trinkets and grants from the state. It is this kind of intellectual who has sold the country to Pakistan and the "liberal" anti-national rants are also given the legitimacy of post-colonial social science. The coming of the Sage Corporation into India has led to the erosion of the independent social science thinking India had for quite a long time.

While I am not a great admirer of the nation state, I can say with a great deal of pride that what I have written and published is based on my wide reading and honest understanding. In short, I represent the dying breed of independent historians and thinkers among the slumdog post colonial teleintellectuals. The UGC also rewards intellectuals for being anti national. If one stretches out ones hand for alms from the likes of Gulam Nabi Fai, the prestige value of such beggars in the Indian Universities goes up. He/she is circulating in the rarefied air of high policy ans so he/she must be rewarded and promoted. It is a shame that the Government of India has appointed on the Kashmir interlocutoer council Dilip Padgoankar who was a guest of Gulam Nabi Fai.


JNU is full of robust teleintelelctuals who have battened themselves on the pickings from Fai.The culture of mediocrity and showmanship which is encouraged in Indian Universities is responsible for the sorry state of affairs. These teleintellectuals do not have the time or the energy to teach as they are found lobbying with their political friends for research money and trips. The net result is a total lack of a national perspective in our educational and res each institutions. Moreover, the Indian academics have learnt to be mimic men and have prospered.

The Mumbai Terror Strikes of July 13th 2011: Why India cannot deal with Jehadi Terrorism

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The recent terror strikes in Mumbai have demonstrated once again that the common Indian citizen will always be at the receiving end of terror strikes while the politicians escape. We have not forgotten the Dawood Ibrahim inspired 1993 blasts or the train balsts, or the India Gate attacks and 26/11/2008 will forever remain a day that will lie in infamy. The Congress response has been to draft the Anti Communal Bill which will make terror attacks even easier and will provide immunity to the perpetrators of terrorist strikes. The ruling party, particularly the Indian National Congress does not seem to realise that terrorism is not an identity issue. The fact that not a single sentence has been carried out to punish those guilty of terrorist attacks only serves to embolden the jehadi groups bent on creating mayhem in India.

There is absolutely no ground level intelligence gathering network that can provide information about plots, targets and finance. The civil liberty groups have ensured that there is blanket of security for all terrorist groups to operate with utter impunity.no one is saying that suspects should be immediately be arrested and thrown into jail, but there is need to have deep roots in the muslim communities, particularly of northern India and Kerala in order to identify potential recruits for terror attacks in India. A proactive policy of stopping terrorism is far better than merely indulging in platitudes after the even. The misplaced commissions such as the Sachar Commissions give legitimacy to a moslem sense of alienation. There is poverty and deprivation in all sections of Indian society and by making that an identity issue, the Congress Pary and its acolytes only encourage a feeling of alienation among the Muslim sections of the Indian population. It is the same misguided policy that led to the Partition and the Indian National Congress in its present dyanstic fascist avatar has not learnt lessons from the past.

Apart from community based intelligence gathering, the country needs to have a doctrine to deal with terrorism. When the BJP handled the Kandhahar crisis one way the Congress politisied the issue and when the BJp advocates strong action, then the same foul moujted congresmen say that there is a communal agenda at work. Unfrtunately the "communal" bogey is raised whenever step need to be taken to protect the aam admi from jehadi terrorism. The politicians are not targetted and hence they do not worry about the plight of the common citizens who die in these brazen attacks. And the jehadis do not attack the politicians because they know that if they do they will be destroyed. In other words the Congres regime does not care about the loss of life in jehadi strikes.

Just think of the case of Kasab, He has been sentenced to death but the sentence is yet to be carried out and because the Congress regime wants to let Afzal Guru escape, Kasab will in all probabiity be repartriated back to Pakistan in a few months/years time. We have an absurd situation here in India where terrorists get full protection and the citizen gets none. There is a lot to be learnt from Israel and the success Israel has had in dealing with Palestenian terrorism. The justice of a political cause cannot be used to justify terrorism and Israel has shown how to deal with militants. Indian Government must seek the cooperation of MOssad and Mossad must be involved in training Indian Intelligence wing. I must also add that RAW and IB are both full of traitors and they must be disbanded.

Even as the death toll mounts, Prithiraj Chavan says that the NCP has the Home portfolio and hence the bomb attacks. Nothing can be more cynical and criminal than this statement. Instead of taking the responsibility for failing to protect the people of Mumbai, Chavan is making political capitsl. Congresman like vultures will feed on the dead bodies of our fallen citezens and they must be eliminated. As long as India continues to vote the corrupt criminals who are now in power the country will bwe asoft target.